The background description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Work of the presently named inventors, to the extent it is described in this background section, as well as aspects of the description that may not otherwise qualify as prior art at the time of filing, are neither expressly nor impliedly admitted as prior art against the present disclosure.
Signal connectors, such as RJ-11 or RJ-45 signal connectors, have been widely used in communications, computer networks, digital communications and other occasions. Because of the simple and convenient combination of a signal plug and a signal socket, the end connection of general communications and networks is mostly achieved by an interconnection between the signal plug and the signal socket, so as to achieve signal connection.
In fact, an RJ-11 signal connector is used for connection between a telephone and a communication network or between a telephone and a handset, and a free end of a signal plug thereof is provided with six terminals in contact with six contact terminals fixed on the RJ-11 signal socket to form signal connection. An RJ-45 signal socket has the same structure as that of the RJ-11 signal socket except that the RJ-45 signal socket has a relatively large size and is provided oppositely with eight contact terminals respectively in contact with eight terminals of the signal plug to meet requirements for such as computer networks or digital communications. Therefore, in signal interconnection, if a user inadvertently inserts an RJ-11 signal plug into an RJ-45 signal socket, two outer sides of the RJ-11 signal plug are straight edge portions, while eight contact terminals extend obliquely upward in an opening of the RJ-45 signal socket, such that the contact terminals on the left and right sides thereof are pushed by the straight edge portions, thus leading to deformation of the contact terminals on the left and right sides, and thereby affecting the quality of the signal connector. In severe cases, contact terminals and terminals cannot be contacted, resulting in interconnection failure.
Therefore, the RJ-45 socket needs an anti-misplugging design in order to prevent the RJ-11 plug from being inserted into the RJ-45 socket and thus causing excessive deformation of the contact terminals on left and right sides of the RJ-45 socket. In an existing design, mostly, a position limiting member is provided separately below a contact portion of the contact terminals on the left and right sides to prevent the contact portion from excessively deviating downward and deforming. For example, the Chinese Patent No. 200710023281.2 discloses an electrical connector, which includes an insulating body, a plurality of conductive terminals and a position limiting member. The insulating body is provided with an accommodating cavity which passes through a wall surface of the insulating body. Each of the terminals includes a contact portion extending into the accommodating cavity. The position limiting member is inserted below the contact portion of the terminal, and an inclined supporting surface is provided thereon to block excessive deviation of the contact portion.
However, the electrical connector has at least the following disadvantages: by separately providing the position limiting member, the components of the electrical connector are increased, thereby increasing the production costs of the electrical connector.
Therefore, a heretofore unaddressed need to design an improved electrical connector exists in the art to address the aforementioned deficiencies and inadequacies.